Three Identical Strangers Overview

The true story of how and why identical triplets were separated and years later, when they were 19, these complete strangers named Robert Shafran, David Kellman, and Eddy Galland discovered by accident that they were brothers.

It all started in 1980, when Bobby Shafran headed to start classes at Sullivan County Community College. When he arrived, other students greeted him as if they knew him, telling him they were happy he was back. He thought it was strange, because he'd never been there before. Until someone called him Eddy. When they figured out he wasn't Eddy, they couldn't believe it. Bobby looked like he could be Eddy's twin. When they realized Eddy and Bobby had the exact same birthday — July 12, 1961 — they thought maybe the two were twins who'd been separated.

When local newspapers caught wind of this and published a photo of the brothers, friends of David Kellman contacted him, noting the resemblance of the two young men in the newspaper to their friend.

When the three reunite, they're catapulted to international fame, but it also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret. It turns out that the three were the subject of a secret experiment in which identical triplets would be separated, but not told about their siblings. Raised in different families with different economic comforts, the families who adopted them were told that their children were being monitored as an experiment on adopted children, but not that they were triplets who were part of a psychological and behavioral experiment.

In fact, all three boys as youngsters suffered from separation anxiety, with David even telling his parents he had a brother when he was a toddler.

When the teens find out what happened, they're understandably angry that they were denied information that dramatically impacted their lives. And what's even worse, they're not the only children to have been experimented on.